Life Model
by Of-Serpit-and-Tobias
Summary: A short and serene piece for a college AU. I hope it is enjoyed.; Arthur has taken to posing nude, every week for a close companion of his.
"Arthur, I do not like this one."

Arthur stopped reading abruptly, swallowing down the last words with a light suckle on his teeth. A low buzz of irritation escaped him.

"Why?" He sniffed, closing the book an casting it aside upon the bed; he knew that there would be little purpose in letting it lay open before him after his companion had given reason, he recognized the finality in his tone. "What's wrong with it?"

The English youth sat, fully naked upon the bed of his companion's quarters. He perched upon the corner, his russeted legs crossed (he had felt a sort of emasculating discomfort at allowing his legs to swing off the edge. It forced him to fold his hands between his thighs, as a rosily bathed and contemplative woman. That was his feeling.) and hunched into his lap, like one of the gnarled and hairless illustrations that squated about the pages of his compilated, Gothic novella. He certainly felt himself ugly, though, it was not for any ingrained disgust at his appearance. He was certain that it was the circumstances of the room that had made him ugly.

His companion's quarters was one of many, on the upper level of a fifteenth century, stone complex, that has once housed an order of monks. The whitewashed cells, square and tight with a heavy air that smelled like chalk, had become horribly draughty as the lamb drew in. The licks of chilled air, seeping in through the untreated window frames slithered, serpentine around Arthur's exposed body, raising pimples on his skin. He felt wholly tender, brittle. Delusional, he thought, childish yet something about the age of the place, the drawn greyness of the light outside the lattice window cemented in his mind,that his flesh had become raw, on the verge of weeping. His mind cried out to his body to shift his position on the duvet, now seemingly harsh against his suseptible flesh, yet he quivered as he quelled the desire, unwilling to here another disdainful comment from his companion.

"It's too,...how shall I say it? It is too _charming_." Ivan, the Russian art history student, had seated himself at the head of the bed, a pad of wide, creamy paper balanced on a folded knee. His other leg sretched almost to the foot of the bed, the toe of his brogue brushing against Arthur's buttock as he occasionally, irritably waved his foot. His studious gaze flickered from the youth, to the paper as he scratched out the shallow divots of Arthur's meager, illiminated sinew in hard graphite. Just catching the shudder of his model's form, he settled on him a moment.

"I'm sorry," his demeanor of rapt concentration softened as he recognized his vulnerability, but he kept his voice light to preserve Arthur's pride. "It's cold, we ought to take a break." Ivan began to put aside his sketch book, when Arthur spoke again, unmoved.;

"You mean, it's too _English_."

"Hm?" Ivan's graphite stick clattered onto the bedside table, loud in the stillness of the room.

"You don't like it, because it's too _English_ for your taste."

Ivan was not in possession of a record player, nor did he own many LPs, save a single of Russian Orthodox chant, grey with overplay and a hissing recording of Slavic folk tales for children. These could only have been played once or twice during these sessions and while Arthur did have a record player in his quarters, Ivan had no desire to draw to the metallic grinding of the New Romantic synth music, that the youth so favoured. Warm to the idea of having some gentle noise while he worked, Ivan had welcomed Arthur's hushed reading of the books he brought to dull the boredom of the Russian's fixated silence. Arthur's voice rasped slightly with forced placidity, so accustomed was he to reading with carrying pitch to a classroom. The cold stiffness of recital prevented his reading from lulling Ivan, but his persistant consideration for mutual enjoyment caused his muted croak to become much beloved.

"It is not that it is English, it is just too late." Ivan rose up from the bed, frowning at his companion's familiar stubborness in his refusal to shift his position, despite his unrepressed shivers. He paced across to the wicker hamper that sat beneath the window. "I do not like this period in your writing, so flowery and... _charming_." Ivan retrieved the heavy folds of a lush blanket of smokey wool from the hamper and made towards his model, who's puckered expression now ressembled that of a skinned trout.

"It's called Romanticism, Ivan, it is as aesthetically driven as the name would imply." Sensitive as he was, the prospect of arguing the genre's intent looked fruitless. He merely made a point of sounding far colder than he felt towards the Russian's complaint.

"Come now, you have gooseflesh all over." The richness of the blanket was heaped into his lap as he felt Ivan brush a chaste, sanguine kiss to the crown of his head. Arthur could feel his grin against his scalp.

The blanket hung off of Arthur in a half hearted toga, as he shuffled shortly about the uncarpeted room like a small girl, swaddled in her mother's evening gown. Ivan lay, languidly across the bed, examining his progress with his drawn form. The blue, aromatic smoke flowed from their slackened lips and scarlet tips of their Turkish cigarettes, curling at the low ceiling like the billowing crests of the pillars that held the roof of the college cathedral.

"This picture will come out muddy." Ivan slurred, his tongue thickening with afternoon weariness and the swell of smoke. "You have bruises...from rugby, yes? It'll look so dirty, if I don't do it right."

Arthur allowed him a jaded twist of a smile, peering down the length of his cigarette with darkened eyes. "If my body is too blemished for you, then you can find yourself a fresh model with no bruises. It's of no consiquence to me, My Dear, I have essays to write." The art student's brow only twitched at this. Arthur tottered over very deliberately, his wrappings nearly tripping him, and retook his seat at the corner of the bed.

"So," The model took a final, deep lungful from his cigarette and blew the blue plume over his bared shoulder, spotted puce with recent bruising. "What were you thinking of, hm? Do you fancy some Causer, or did you want some more bloody Greek poety?"

The artist gazed briefly at him, with a happy vacancy. "Yes, another reading of Homer, I think."


End file.
